Interest and scholarship in the Arabic popular and oral literary tradition has, happily, been increasing in recent years. Critics are beginning to see oral poetry and popular epic not as faulty attempts at history or as cramped and repetitive forms of expression, but rather as part of an important worldwide phenomenon of heroic folk literature, with some fascinatingly unique Arabian elements. The role of women in this literature, especially in the popular epic cycles, has not yet been given as much attention as it deserves. Examining both the exceptional characters and the stock characters that appear in this popular literature can offer valuable insights both into the entertainment value of certain motifs and into the cultural values which inform character choices. In this paper, I re-examine and categorize the types of female characters found in four major Arabian epic tales: S?rat Ban? Hil?l, S?rat al-Malik Sayf b. Dh? Yazan, S?rat ‘Antar, and S?rat al-Am?ra Dh?t al-Himma. Combining the typologies of male characters that Peter Heath and M.C. Lyons have laid out, there are five general categorizations of men in these tales: The Hero, The Father, The Helper, The Man of Wiles, and The Villain. These categorizations, for the most part, split women into only two categories: the formidable warrior woman, who is exceptional, and all other females, who are generally categorized as being both weak-witted and dishonorable, characteristics which cause them to undermine the hero by antagonizing him and giving away his secrets. I argue, however, that all five of the aforementioned male categories have close female equivalents (The Heroine, The Mother, The Helper, The Woman of Wiles, and The Villainess), in addition to which exist two essential roles that can only be filled by females: The Romantic Interest and The Wife. By describing and comparing male and female stock characters in these major works of Arabian epic, I will show that these characters are not merely subservient foils to the male characters but are integral to the plots in their own right, revealing a more nuanced view of womanhood than many would like to suppose. Looking at the epics through the lens of feminist criticism widens the scope of their importance and sheds more light on the wonderful richness and complexity of these vital popular narratives.

Tabooed Language Behavior and Euphemisms in Alf Layla wa-Layla Taboos are proscriptions of certain behaviors, for certain people, in certain contexts, and are a well-attested universal human phenomenon. Likewise, avoidance of taboo words, expressions believed to be harmful is a universal pattern of language behavior. Words tabooed are usually related to sex, bodily functions and effluvia, sickness and death, and are rendered indirectly by means of euphemisms (see Allan & Burridge, Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language (Cambridge, 2006)). The focus of this paper is tabooed language behavior in Alf layla wa-layla (the “Arabian Nights”). The tales included in the different collections of Alf layla were on the margin of the pre-modern Arabic literary system, without a recognized canonical status, and were continuously (re)created on account of oral transmission. The strong folk literary component of Alf layla and its essential oral nature is attested in the linguistic register of the tales, despite the (often unsuccessful) attempt to dress them in an acceptable classical Arabic garb when written down. It is for these social, literary, and linguistic reasons that Alf layla bears evidence to tabooed language behavior which is not always along the lines of that found in the canonical elite literature, and therefore warrants a special study. Both the language used by the anonymous narrators in their storytelling, and the reported language behavior of various characters in the tales are closely examined. The pronounced fantastic quality of Alf layla, and the fact that it does not obey the canonical injunction to tell realistic stories and shun the fictitious, allow for the treatment and illustration of numerous taboos, and makes it possible to demonstrate the outcome of their violation. Thus, for example, we vividly see the unfortunate repercussions of uttering the name of God portrayed in an utterly unrealistic fashion. This taboo, interestingly enough, is totally absent from canonical works dealing with euphemisms and taboos like al-Tha`alibi’s (350-429/961-1038) Kitab al-kinaya. This is despite being a very familiar taboo visible in human communities worldwide. The fact that the tales were partly shaped by Arabic written culture is illustrated by eloquent euphemisms using grammar rules as symbols for sexual acts. It is impossible that uneducated folks could understand this type of figurative language. The prism of tabooed language behavior used in this paper is much telling of the key features of Alf layla vis-à-vis the classical Arabic literary tradition.

In this panel paper, I will advance a reading of al-Jahiz’s Risalat al-Qiyan, (The Epistle of the Singing Slave-Girls) arguing that the epistle is in part an extension—in the area of relations between the sexes—of the author’s longstanding struggle against the influence of proto-Sunni Traditionists (the hushwiyya as he labels them in other texts). The epistle is written pseudonymously as the work of traders in singing female slaves muqayyinun, who defend the legitimacy of their trade while all but admitting that it is often a cloak for prostitution and other transgressions against Muslim norms. In crafting their response to their prudish detractors—whom I read to be closely identified with elements of the hushwiyya—al-Jahiz alternates bold parody of the traders’ hypocrisy with subtly-reasoned defenses of the relatively-free interaction between the sexes that their trade entailed. A sort of hidden dialectic arises between their arguments, strong and dubious, and what can infer were the critiques of their detractors, which seemed to have been similarly varied in quality. The reader is prompted to search for a mean position on the legal and social issues raised between the extreme views portrayed in the epistle. The muqayyinun become al-Jahiz’s mouthpiece in critiquing the textual foundations and reasoning underlying the strictures on gender relations enjoined by the hushwiyya. At the same time the muqayyinun embody an opposing, licentious position in relation to which al-Jahiz can portray his critique of the hushwiyya as a golden mean. Moreover, the casuistry with which the muqayyinun argue for their position against the hushwiyya, reveals how the latter’s use of strictures derived from texts and legal principles without due consideration of the divinely-ordained purpose behind Muslim law can even be twisted into justifications for prostitution and other excesses. The epistle famously closes with al-Jahiz’s claim to be an innocent transmitter of the text he has found, whether it originates from the muqayyinun, from their accomplices or from interlopers on their trade. In so doing he parodies the hushwiyya, who, in their transmission of received rules and texts, fail to consider how they may be contributing to social ills such as the more sinister practices of the muqayyinun. The principle source for this presentation will be the text of R. al-Qiyan in the editions of Beeston and Harun, along with studies by Pellat and Cheikh-Moussa, the arguments of which it will build on and also critique.

Yemen has a reputation across the Middle East for the production of traditional poetry, music and dance, but is rarely associated with drama or the theater. Yet the country has had a long and vibrant theatrical history, and has produced gifted and prolific playwrights whose work provides vital and unique insight into the culture, the concerns, and the aspirations of her inhabitants. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, Yemeni acting troupes have practiced in all of Yemen’s major cities, performing a range of genres, from classical Greek tragedy to musicals to experimental drama. Yemeni playwrights have created comedies, satires, historical dramas featuring the Queen of Sheba and Saif Bin Dhi Yazen, and have adapted the works of Western authors like Shakespeare, Brecht, and Pirandello to their own historical and societal context. Contemporary dramatic performances attract hundreds of enthusiastic spectators; theater productions are commissioned for festivals, holidays, and even wedding celebrations. This paper will examine the roles played by women in contemporary Yemeni theater, as protagonists and heroines of particular plays, and also as actresses, directors, and critics. It will highlight the intense scrutiny to which Yemeni actresses are subject and investigate the occasionally, harsh criticism, when they step into the limelight. Research methodology will combine translation and textual analysis grounded in performance theory, with evaluation of the visual iconography of various performances viewed in Sana’a and Aden. The paper will reference the recent work of Yemeni theater critics such as Yahya Mohammed Saif, as well as personal interviews with actresses Nour Abdullah and Manal al-Mulaki, and playwright-directors Amr Jamal and Qasim Abbas al-Lami, among others. One objective of this paper is to show how women capitalize on the freedom of expression that playing a role on the liminal space of the stage can provide. It will therefore cite the obstacles that all practitioners of contemporary theater in Yemen must struggle against, especially the social strictures that set rigid limits on what opinions may be voiced in public, and on male-female interaction. Providing specific examples of female actors voicing discontent, both on and off stage, at class distinctions, gender segregation, endemic corruption and the myriad other issues faced by Yemeni society, this paper will demonstrate the ways in which Yemeni actresses’ unique contributions to their field have challenged cultural mores and have led to broader individual and artistic freedom for the actresses themselves.

At the 2008 Cairo International Book Fair, respected Egyptian publishing house Dar El Shorouk introduced the Arabic-speaking world to three books adapted from blogs written by Egyptian women: Urz bil-labn li-shakhsayn (Rice Pudding for Two) by Rehab Bassam, ‘Ayzah ’atgawwiz (I Want to Get Married) by Ghada Abdel Aal, and ’Ama hadhihi fa-raqa?t? ’an? (As for This One, It’s My Dance) by Ghada Mohamed Mahmoud. This paper provides a meta-literary and literary analysis of the three popular books in relation to their original blogs with special attention to issues of gender and genre. Specifically, I examine shifts in genre that took place as the three original blogs were transformed from ever-changing near-dialogues between author and reader embedded in the meta-text of readers’ comments, into the fixed text of hardcopy books designed, marketed and distributed by a third party. Dar El Shorouk emphasizes the books’ connection to the blogging world in its conscious labeling of these three books, along with two others published subsequently as part of the series, as a new genre distinct from traditional literary genres: mudawwana. By omitting the word adab in its categorization of these texts, Dar El Shorouk shows its hesitation to place these texts on equal footing with traditional and mainstream modern Arabic literature; however, the publishing house also simultaneously creates a new, undefined space between traditional adab, which appears most often as published books, and blogs. I preface my discussion with previous arguments that use convincingly Habermas’ conception of the public sphere and Nancy Fraser’s feminist critique of Habermas to analyze emerging trends and conclude that there is a presence of multiple, overlapping counterpublics and subaltern counterpublics in the Middle East and North African blogosphere (Eickelman and Anderson 2003; Skalli 2006; Elsadda 2010). I complicate these previous arguments by asserting that blogs should not be juxtaposed with their book counterparts; rather, the two formats create distinct counterpublics that therefore have distinct influences on their audiences and on genre categorization. Close analysis of these texts as books and blogs undermines critics’ attempts to confine these works to a single genre and explores how the texts give voice to some of the frequently overlooked or oversimplified problems facing women in Egypt. By writing openly, Bassam, Mahmoud and Abdel Aal write in a transgressive manner and create productive counterpublics in cyberspace that extend to mainstream literary circles following the texts’ publication by Dar El Shorouk.